Mesoconius noteques, Marshall, 2019

Marshall, Stephen A., 2019, A revision of the genus Mesoconius Enderlein (Diptera, Micropezidae, Taeniapterinae), European Journal of Taxonomy 548, pp. 1-126 : 38-40

Mesoconius noteques sp. nov.

urn:lsid:zoobank.org:act:F10BDA67-7B09-4796-80F3-97C10C598F7F

Fig. 13

Etymology

This species was named by adding a prefix to the name of the superficially similar M. eques ( Schiner, 1868) .

Material examined

Holotype

PERU • ♀; Cusco, Wayqecha Biological Station , 9 km NE of Challabamba; 13°10ʹ20ʺ S, 71°35ʹ00ʺ W; 2600–2700 m a.s.l.; 1–6 Dec. 2011; S.A. Marshall leg.; MUSM.

Paratype

PERU • 1♀; same collecting data as for holotype; MYCRO454-18; DEBU .

Description (female only)

LENGTH. 18 mm.

COLOUR. Almost entirely black, including wing membrane and abdominal pleuron, except as follows: parafacial, gena and face strongly silvery microtrichose, inner margins of subantennal areas shiny brown; base of first flagellomere reddish. Mid and hind femora with indistinct (barely discernable) yellow bands near or just beyond middle, somewhat reddish distal to bands. Notum with dense microtrichosity forming three very indistinct longitudinal silvery vittae. Katatergite reddish brown.

HEAD. Epicephalon and paracephalon finely striate, subshining; frontal vitta posteriorly broadly tapered, almost to level of inner vertical bristles without surrounding microtrichosity, broad and broadly rounded anteriorly, extending ⅔ of distance from ocellus to frons margin. One large fronto-orbital bristle inserted at junction between epicephalon and orbital strip. Antennae separated by more than width of antennal socket, upper quarter of face strongly and broadly carinate, lower face flat. Clypeus mostly bare. Lower back of head densely short-setose.

THORAX. Cervical sclerite with a microtrichose, subquadrate posterior portion and a small, bare anterior portion. Fore tibia flat, sulcate on outer face. Tarsomere 1 of fore leg narrow. Mid and hind femora shiny and almost bare basal to pale band near midpoint, setulose and slightly swollen distally. Notum microtrichose, with rows of small acrostichal and dorsocentral setulae; postpronotal lobe microtrichose with some scattered small setulae, anterior margin forming a vertical face, shiny on upper half. Dorsocentral bristle slightly longer than scutellum. Scutellum with two–four small discal setulae and a pair of long apical bristles (longer than scutellum). Katatergite very prominent, with a long, tapered microtrichose, nipple-like process. Notopleuron with two widely spaced black bristles. Vertical row of katepisternal bristles black. Fore coxa with anteroventral black setae, mid coxa with row of golden anteroventral setae.

ABDOMEN. Abdominal segment 1 and base of segment 2 petiolate; length of 1+2 double that of tergite 3. Bursa small, smooth; ventral receptacle inconspicuous; single spermatheca small but elongate, with several tuberculate processes, on a short duct arising near apex of bursa independently of paired duct. Paired spermathecae with a very long, broad duct divided into two parts: basal third more membranous and wrinkled, distal part more sclerotized, with weak transverse striations and slightly swollen before splitting into strongly convluted stems leading to each spermatheca. Paired spermathecae large and elongate, almost cylindrical, but slightly expanded and invaginated apically.

Remarks

This species looks much like Mesoconius eques and was initially misidentified as such, but it differs in having an unmodified fore tarsomere 1, golden mid-coxal setae and both spermathecal ducts arising independently from the small bursa (on a long common duct in M. eques ). Mesoconius noteques sp. nov. is one of several sympatric and remarkably similar black Micropezidae , and the material described here was collected at the same time and place as the superficially similar M. quadritheca sp. nov. and a very similar undescribed black species of Cliobata Enderlein, 1922 . The paratype was sequenced for the barcode region of CO1 and recovered in the middle of a cluster of M. nigripleuron sp. nov. on the maximum likelihood tree ( Fig. 50 ), apparently sharing the same haplotype as three of the sequenced M. nigripleuron sp. nov., a differently coloured species with orange wings and banded legs. Since M. noteques sp. nov. is known only from females, and since females of the M. eques group are mostly very similar, it is possible that M. noteques sp. nov. is an extreme colour variant of M. nigripleuron sp. nov. However, this is unlikely, as wing colour is not known to vary intraspecifically in the genus and other colour characters are extremely different, well outside the normal range of variation.

Figures

Fig. 13. Mesoconius noteques sp. nov., ♀♀. A. Spermathecae and associated structures. B. Head. C. Habitus, lateral view. D. Body, dorsal view.

Fig. 50. Maximum likelihood tree from CO1 barcodes. Sequences were aligned using BOLD (amino acid based HMM) and then manually corrected. Maximum likelihood analysis was performed in RAxML (ver. 8.2) using GTR-G with 100 replicates.